Runaways
by Lixue-S
Summary: Ponyboy and Johnny both fall asleep on the train to Windrixville, and end up in Stillwater. There, they find a boarding school for the arts, and a girl who looks real good in yellow.
1. Chapter 1

Hello! This is the story I made that was supposed to be kind of a re-written version of Numb. Um...It uses the same characters and I got it from the same place... I'm sorry for not making it into a song again (I'm sorry I'm that lazy). I'm really sorry if it's bad, or inaccurate to the time period.

This takes place after Ponyboy and Johnny board the train to get to Windrixville. I know they do some dumb actions, but it was in the original plot.

I do not own the Outsiders...

* * *

"Ponyboy, Ponyboy wake up!"

I felt a hand shake me gently.

"Pony, we missed our stop."

I tried to get the words through my sleepy head. We missed our stop... we missed our stop... "We didn't get off at Windrixville?" I asked sleepily.

"No. I'm sorry Pony," Johnny apologized, "I fell asleep, and then I heard the whistle..."

We got out of the boxcar we snuck into, and jumped onto the ground. The train I read the sign. 'STILLWATER TRAIN STATION' it read.

"Johnny..." I said slowly. "Johnny, where are we?"

"Stillwater?" he guessed. I looked at him, and his eyes were wide. "How do we go back?"

That was a good question. It was too late to answer, as we saw the train speed away from us. I turned in a circle and looked around. We were in the city, with it's large lights and tall buildings. It sorta floored me, with such tall buildings; I wondered how it was possible to see the sunset. I felt a tug on my arm.

"Come on Pony," Johnny said, "M-maybe we could call Dally on a payphone."  
I followed him, and the city was sure different then our town. It was crowded, with people roughly pushing past us. I looked up at the darkening sky. How long have we been asleep? A few girls gave us funny looks.

"We sure don't look like city kids," I muttered.

"No..." Johnny replied. "Do you see a pay phone anywhere?"

"No." We were standing back to back, as if someone was going to attack us if we didn't. "Did Dally give you any change?" I asked.

"No," he said a little sheepishly. He looked around. "We should find a place to stay."

"Yeah." But where? We looked around and I saw a motel called 'Le Chambre.' "We could stay there," I said, pointing to it. By the looks of it, though, it looked a lot like those cheap motels Dally said he stayed in in New York. He said that they weren't all that great, and I was a bit skittish about going there, but we had no other place to go.

It was a run-down motel too, with the lights blinking outta sync with each other. When we got it, it seemed exactly like how Dally described them. Shabby wallpaper, with a shady guy behind the counter. We approached him slowly.

"May I help you?" he asked curtly.

"Um... Can you give us a room?" Johnny asked.

"Sure, that'll be twenty bucks."

Johnny gave him the money, and the man gave us the key. "Room 407, second story."

"Thanks."

We walked up the stair to the second story, and opened the door our room. There was only one bed with a broken down television on the opposite side of it. I walked around the cramped space and opened the door to the bathroom. Johnny stretched his arm around me, and we both fell asleep. It didn't matter that the bed smelled like rotting meat, or that the door was open.

"It's your own fault!"

"Get the hell outta here!"

The sound of screaming woke me up with a start. I've heard that kind of screaming before, when I was at Johnny's house. At first, I thought I was back home, and I _was_ at his house. I sat up a bit and looked around. But, Johnny wasn't here.

"Johnny?" I asked the empty room. I stood and went to the bathroom, I knocked, and it opened. He wasn't there either.

I looked at the door, and it was closed. I know it was open when we fell asleep. Oh, God, what if someone came in here and kidnapped him? But he had his switchblade...but small, thin Johnny facing big, mean men....

I saw the window, and tried to open it, but it was stuckfast. I peered through it, and tried to see if anyone was forcing him into their car or something. There was no one, I sighed and glanced over at the television, and someone had stuck a note there written on toilet paper. The crooked handwriting read:

_Went to get supplies. Be back soon.  
__ J.C._

He was just getting supplies... I hope. My imagination liked to do this, run off with me, but somehow I believe it.

I went inside the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was messed up, so I ran a comb through it. There I was, dressed in a hoodlum's jacket and a shirt a million sizes too big.

"Ponyboy? Are you here?"

I opened the bathroom door and saw him standing in the doorway, with a sack full of supplies.

"Hi Ponyboy," he said.

"Hey Johnny," I said, as he plopped the supplies onto the table. "So, wha'd ya get?"

"Well--"

He was cut off by the screams of the fighting couple from across the hall. He looked out the door, wide-eyed, like in his own home.

A woman was pushed into the room with us.

"Are you okay?" we asked her, trying to help her up. She roughly pushed us away, and we saw a man with a knife slowly advancing towards us.

"If you boys had any sense," he said, waving the knife within inches of us, "You'd get outta here. I wouldn't like to kill a couple kids."

I stared at the knife, and one thing seemed clear to me.

To grab Johnny and the woman and high tail it outta there.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own The Outsiders.

* * *

I grabbed the woman and Johnny and got out of there as fast as I could. There was no way I was letting my best friend or this woman get killed.

Until she pulled out a six inch switchblade out of the pocket of her skirt.

"GET THE HELL OFF ME!!!" she hollered at us. I dropped her right that minute, and me and Johnny were pretty scared by that moment. The guy came back too, and he still had that knife. We ran out before someone got stabbed, because there was no way we were gonna be there when the fuzz comes.

Johnny and I wondered around the city for a while. We stopped to play some pinball in the bowling alley, and then walked around some more. The sun began to set, and we started worrying about where we were gonna stay.

"Should we go back?" I asked Johnny.

"Nah," he replied. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "They might still be there."

"You think?"

"My old man beats me all the time, but no one stops him."

I thought about that, and that was true. Johnny was beaten all the time, and the police never arrested his parents for it. The couple fought too, so it was might be a fair bet they were still there. He handed me a light, and I wondered faintly what was going on in Tulsa. Would Dally come here and get us?

Eventually, we found a school that seemed empty. The sign, old and worn, read 'Hale Academy.'

"Should we go in?" I asked. Stillwater was a good fifty miles from Tulsa (a/n: Thank you whatcolorinthesky for telling me that was an actual place), so the news might not've gotten here yet.

Johnny shrugged and pushed open the gate. A siren sounded and about three hundred kids started swarming around us. Johnny and I were separated pretty quickly.

"Johnny!" I cried, trying to make my way through the crowd. I faintly heard him scream my name back. The worst started to flood through my mind. What if they stampeded over him? What if they stampeded over me?

Someone roughly pulled me away from the crowd and shook me.

"Why aren't you in your uniform?"

"Huh?"

I turned and saw an old, fragile looking woman. But the way she handled me was anything but gentle.

"Well?"

"Uh, err..." What was I supposed to say to her?

"Never mind, go to the student store and get another one."

I stared at her blankly.

"NOW!" she snaps. She pointed to a small stand near the entrance. There was a girl standing there, in a plaid dress. I recognized her as the girl from my school, the one who looked real good in yellow. I walked over there sheepishly.

"You're the hood from my old school!" she exclaims, eyeing me.

"Uh, yeah," I say, looking at my feet. Being told you're a hood doesn't make you feel too hot.

"What are you doing here? This is a girl's academy!"

I looked at her, my eyes as wide as Johnny's were. "What?!" That teacher thought I was a student here. Being told you look like a girl really doesn't make you feel too hot. I must've looked miserable, because she said, "I'm kidding. It's just that this is an arts academy. You don't usually see too many boys around here."

I sighed and looked around for Johnny. It surprised me how empty it got in a matter of three minutes.

"So, what are you here for?" she asked.

"The teacher told me to buy a uniform," I told her.

"Well, you sure can't go around looking like that." I felt my ears go red.

"Yeah, but I don't have any money on me."

"Hm," she said, looking around, "You can have this one for free, I guess. Just don't tell anyone."

"Is it okay if I get one for Johnny too?" I asked.

"Sure, where is he?"

I looked around again. "I dunno."

She sighed and pulled at my wrist, and took me around the school. It was a big campus, and we found him sitting inside her dormitory.

"Is that him?" she asked.

I nodded, and sat with him on the bed.

"There sure are a lot of broads here," he said softly. Johnny was shy around girls, and he looked a little jittery.

The girl put the clothing next to us and said that we better change before the other girls come here. We both started taking off our shirts, but then she threw a pillow at us.

"I didn't mean in front of me." She walked out after that.

In the uniform, I couldn't have felt more like a Soc. I mean, I was in madras. Multicolored madras. And white pants to boot. I looked at Johnny, and I had to admit that he looked pretty funny without any blue jeans on him. Like a different person.

The girl came back in a little while later. I realized that I never knew her name.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Diane," she replied, "Diane Ronard Thompson."

"I'm Ponyboy," I said.

"I know, and you have a brother named Soda, it even says so on your birth certificates."

I looked at her. I didn't know what to say to that.

"You say that every time you tell someone your name."

I felt my ears turn red. Did I really say that _every time_ I told someone my name? I saw her check her watch and look at us.

"It's almost time for bed. There's going to be a bunch of girls here."

Oh Glory, that's just perfect.

"Will that be okay with you?"

I turned to Johnny, and he had a worried look on his face.


End file.
